Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/110

 to put in place of the Latin and Greek the study of modern languages and literatures, the knowledge of which would be much more useful in the practical business of life? This question is certainly entitled to serious consideration. Latin is no longer what it was in most of the countries of the so-called civilized world down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, in some of them, even to a much more recent period, the language of diplomacy, of jurisprudence, of philosophy, and of all science. Not even the ability to quote Horace in conversation is any longer required to give one the stamp of an educated man. The literatures of classical antiquity are no longer the only ones in which great creations of poetry in perfect beauty of form are found, or models of historical writing, or of oratorical eloquence, or of philosophical reasoning. Of all these things modern literatures contain rich treasures, and there is also an abundance of excellent translations to make the masterpieces of antiquity accessible to those who do not understand the classical tongues.

And yet, when I now in my old days, and after multifarious experiences of life, ask myself which part of the instruction I received in my youth I would miss with the most regret, my answer would not be doubtful for a single moment. Indeed, I have, I am sorry to say, lost much of the Latin and Greek that I knew when I was at the gymnasium. But the æsthetic and moral impulses that such studies gave me, the ideal standards they helped me in erecting, the mental horizons they opened to me, I have never lost. Those studies are not a mere means for the acquisition of knowledge, but, in the best sense of the word, an element of culture. And thus they have remained to me during my whole life an inexhaustible source of elevating enjoyment and inspiration.

If once more I had to choose between the classical studies